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The face of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics?

Rowan Cheshire posted a selfie to Twitter after her training accident.

This is how Great Britain’s halfpipe hopeful Rowan Cheshire spent her time at Sochi: Recovering in a hospital bed, after suffering a concussion during a training run.

This is Sara Burke, the 29-year-old Canadian athlete whose appeal to the Olympic Committee helped bring slopestyle and halfpipe free-skiing events to the roster of Olympic sports. She never even made it to Sochi.
Burke is now the sport’s martyr. She died in 2012 after a superpipe run in Park City, Utah. A fall caused a tear of her vertebral artery.

This is the memorial that halfpipe skiiers held for her in Sochi.

Sarah Burke couldn't be in Sochi, so her fellow skiers showed their love. /Mashable

Extreme winter sports make for great television. But at what cost?

I’ve made a list of athletes, injuries and sporting events mentioned in the news from Sochi so far. It’s filled with slopestyle and halfpipe injuries, especially among women:

Canada's Yuki Tsubota is carried off in a stretcher after a slopestyle crash. Her jaw was crushed by her knee. / AP

Russian skicross racer Maria Komissarova, who broke her back during a fall at Sochi.

Hotz just wants to see more communities instituting the best practices for keeping young athletes safe, especially from concussions, which could affect their entire lives.

“These kids should be baseline tested at the start of the season, re-tested after injury, treated, and monitored for gradual return to play,” Hotz said. “A lot of kids will get better if they just rest and don’t exert themselves for seven to ten days.”